My week as a lecturer #6 – campus, home, online

It was chilly in the Dome on Saturday for our open day. The opportunity to talk to current and prospective students and parents with lots of questions is inspiring. A popular question is BSc or BA – which is best? My favourite question to ask: what excites you about geography?This week started with my lecture at 9am on Monday. We spent the first hour discussing theories of scale. Using case studies created by the students – including ebola, Central Park, computers, chocolate – to reveal the interconnectedness of scale. 5 groups gave 1 minute presentations on the global, national, local, community, personal. Brilliant work. Following 2 dissertation meetings I headed down to the Museum of English Rural Life to hear a seminar by my chum Dr Innes Keighren from the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway. His paper was on: ‘Travels in a publisher’s archive: John Murray and nineteenth-century travel publishing’. Following Dr Keighren’s talk we spent some time in the Reading room to view a pop-up exhibition using items from the University’s special collections. A great way to illustrate a talk.

I managed to work from home one day this week. A time to catch-up with tree health and my ideas about human and non-human enthusiasm. My research has focused on the tree disease Chalara dieback of ash. After all my study started 4 days before… I spent most of the day learning about the life cycle of the fungi. I also organised several interviews with participants. I needed a cheese and tomato toastie to fuel thinking! To add to the non-human thinking, next door’s cat joined me. Pushing me off my seat and getting comfortable. Yesterday was all about staff development, wellbeing and Athena SWAN. Here are the smiley faces of our School Self Assessment Team: Mainly committee meetings but also plenty of discussion around these meetings about collegiality, decoration plans for our common room and the realisation that we don’t have enough end of term parties to attend! On a serious note though, yesterday we launched our School blog called SAGE(S) Advice. It’s all about fieldwork, gender and careers. Next week: Enhancement Week.